Abstract:
In this multidisciplinary, inquiry-based project students prepare a plan and give a persuasive oral presentation to create a reconstructed prairie based on research. Teachers can use this unit with their students to justify enlarging or keeping an existing prairie. This project can serve as the organizing structure for prairie study where materials from units such as The Prairie - Our Heartland become research materials. It can be used in conjunction with the unit which is taught best in the fall, or perhaps during the spring planting season after students have completed the primary unit of study. The open-ended problem lends itself to a variety of solutions and is appropriate for students at all ability levels.
Introduction to Research:
As part of their research students need to learn about several prairie characteristics--plant diversity, dominance and importance value. These characteristics are different for a native prairie and a restored prairie. The quadrat study is a research technique to count the plants in a random sample of one meter square plots. Averaging over the samples provides a measure of these characteristics.
Students' persuasive arguments must be based on solid information they learn from their research and instructional units or what they find on the Internet, in the library, etc. SIMply Prairie resources include:
Fermilab resources accessed from SIMply Prairie include:
- A list of online resources as a useful starting point for locating appropriate Web sites. (You may want your students to use the Internet record sheet to keep track of the Web sites they visit. This may add an additional aspect of accountability and safety.)
- Skill-building activities for doing a quadrat study.
- Student data from ongoing studies and studies from previous years (starting in 1992).
- Database of Fermilab prairie grasses and forbs
- Prairie visualization tools (can be used to construct a virtual prairie for the presentation)
- Drawings of plants.
- Photos and information about plants.
Learner Outcomes: Students will know and be able to:
- Describe a prairie.
- Identify prairie plants (forbs and grasses).
- Identify animals found in the prairie.
- Tell where prairies are located.
- Explain the importance of prairies.
- Describe the seasonal changes of a prairie.
- Explain prairie reconstruction and maintenance.
- Describe a quadrat study.
- Estimate, calculate and compare percentages.
- Construct charts and graphs using data.
Research Questions:
The ill-structured problem is to convince decision makers to allow students to develop and maintain a prairie parcel. Their concerns may include issues such as: What is a prairie? What types of plants and animals live there? How do you prepare the ground for seeding? Where do you get seeds? How much time is involved? What will it cost? How will the prairie change over time? What is the future upkeep? How will the community react and unanticipated consequences?
Draft invitation letter. Put it on your school letterhead for authenticity.
Product:
Presentation: Student groups create presentations to persuade decision makers (principal, school board, teachers, park district, etc.) to allow them to develop and maintain a prairie parcel. Prairie data must be used to support proposals.Actual Restoration: Prairie Parcel Restoration has detailed information for creating prairie plots if you and your students choose to do so.
Assessment:
A prairie rubric assesses learner outcomes above.Other research rubrics may used with Fermilab data projects. In addition, at the beginning of the unit you may set guidelines for assessing daily work, for example, through a student journal.